


Crash-Landing

by karmarocks



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Sick Character, Sickfic, Sneezing, sick keith, sneezefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 09:05:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11055762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmarocks/pseuds/karmarocks
Summary: My first fic, so please be gentle. Basically the team crash-lands on an unscouted planet (no explanation as to why because I couldn't think of one...) and Keith is sick.





	1. Chapter 1

After crash-landing on a random planet, the team began trying to regroup. Luckily Hunk and Lance had landed close to one another, and they found Pidge nearby in a tree, trying to search for the rest of the team. Shiro was fairly easy to locate, as he was actively seeking out his paladins, Keith, however, was proving difficult.  
“Did anyone see him on their way down?” Shiro asked.  
“No… I was more focused on the fact that I was plummeting towards an alien planet that we haven’t scouted at an alarming speed.” Pidge deadpanned.  
After an hour of hunting and quite a bit of complaining from Lance, they saw the red paladin’s lion in a nearby swamp. Keith had apparently gotten out of his ship, then he had either passed out or fallen asleep in the water, his head propped against his lion.  
“Seriously?” Lance exclaimed, poking at his fellow paladin with his toe, “how can you be asleep? We just crash-landed on a random planet!”  
Keith stirred, looking blearily up at the concerned faces of Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk, his gaze finally landing on Lance’s pissed-off expression.  
Before he could say or do anything, Keith was being wrenched upwards by his armpits by Shiro, “you shouldn’t just sleep in the water, Keith. You’re going to get sick!”  
Keith just shrugged, involuntarily shivering as a breeze whipped through his slightly damp hair.  
Keith’s indifference would usually fuel Lance’s anger, yet he was stuck between annoyance that Keith had decided to take a nap instead of finding his friends who had been worried sick about him, and concern for the other man’s clear shivering. Then something odd happened, Keith’s solemn expression shifted for a moment, flashed with—something—Lance couldn’t put his finger on what, then Keith abruptly turned on his heel, ducking his head for a moment, then, straightening himself back up, he swiveled around to face the others again. “What’s the plan?”  
Suddenly he was all business, obviously not wanting anyone to comment on the odd display he had just put on. “Um… I suppose we should find shelter then work on getting in touch with Allura and Coran.” Shiro stated, clearly having caught on to the smaller man’s current predicament, but choosing not to comment for the time being, and they set off into the forest.  
Keith repeated the action about ten more times before Lance had had enough. “Dude! What the heck are you doing?”  
“What?” Keith looked genuinely confused.  
“That thing! Where you just turn away for a second, make a weird sound, then turn back like nothing happened!”  
“I h-haved’t the slightest clue what you’re talkigg about, Ladce.” He sniffed once, trying to clear his voice of the obvious congestion settling into it, dismayed when the seemingly harmless act sparked a tickle in his already buzzing sinuses.  
He wouldn’t sneeze in front of his teammates again; it was embarrassing and he didn’t want to give Lance any ammo against him. But his nose itched! His sinuses yearned for the sweet relief that a sneeze would bring, but he stubbornly refused to give in to their pleas.  
He managed to give his rebellious nose a few harsh rubs while turned away from the team, pretending to be interested in the flora of the new planet. The team finally came upon the cave that Pidge had spotted after they formed a small human tower consisting of Shiro on the bottom, then Keith with Pidge on his shoulders. At that time, Keith had had to pinch his nose to prevent himself from sneezing and knocking himself and Pidge to the ground. He knew that it would be hard to keep his ever-increasing sneeziness hidden from the team, so he decided that he would go off on his own for a little bit and try to get all the tickles out of his nose. So, when Shiro asked if anyone wanted to get firewood, Keith pounced on the opportunity, shouting over his shoulder that he would be back soon.  
Shiro looked after Keith’s rapidly retreating form, and turned to Lance, “I want you to follow him, but be inconspicuous, I don’t want him knowing that I have a spy on him.”  
“Do you think he’s like, teaming up with this planet or something? Why would you need a spy?”  
Shiro looked at him incredulously, “What? No, I think he’s getting sick.”  
Lance shrugged and sauntered in the direction Keith had gone, he didn’t want to be doing this, he wanted to help Hunk find something edible or maybe help Pidge try to set up a communications device. He definitely did not want to be following his rival around just to see if he had the sniffles, however, he also didn’t want Shiro angry with him. Eventually his fear of the wrath of Space Dad got the best of him and he began looking for the subject on whom he was to spy.  
“Heh-hih… haahh…”  
He crept behind a tree, though he had a feeling that Keith wouldn’t have noticed if he were standing out in the open, because there was a look of such intense concentration on the slightly shorter man’s face. He stood, gaping at the display in front of him: Keith, the man he believed to be his rival, was finally struggling with something, and yet it didn’t feel very good to see it. He thought that he would find it funny to see Keith in a weakened state, but seeing the other paladin’s paler-than-usual pallor and heavily flushed cheeks and nose only made his chest feel funny. After watching Keith struggle with his nose for about five minutes, which seemed like twenty years in Lance time, Lance decided he should intervene. He reached down and plucked a blade of grass out of the ground and examined it, deeming it sturdy enough to be of use to him. Then he crept up next to Keith, whose eyes were closed as his chest and shoulders bucked in time with his violently twitching nose. Somehow the normally observant paladin did not sense Lance’s presence beside him, at least not until Lance poked his weapon of choice into Keith’s flaring left nostril. As soon as the grass had touched the inside of Keith’s already sensitive nose, the tickle increased tenfold. He became aware that someone else was there and became a bit self-conscious, but he needed to sneeze and it was going to happen right then whether he wanted it to or not.  
“Hah… Hhi’Kktsch! Hhih-nngt! Hhh’itschgnx! Hh’ngXh!”  
Lance couldn’t believe that Keith was trying to stifle, there was no way he would allow it, not after witnessing the awful buildup that Keith had just suffered through. Lance grabbed Keith’s trembling arms and held them behind him, since he wasn’t too eager to be within the blast zone of Keith’s rapid sternutation.  
“H-hey! Give be by arbs back!”  
Keith protested weakly, trying to pull away from Lance’s grip; he had deduced that it was most likely Lance doing this, because Hunk would have tried to hug him, Pidge would have laughed at him, and Shiro would have scolded him about stifling, so it had to be the annoying blue paladin. Plus, only Lance would have the audacity to shove something up his nose against his consent. Or at all really. Keith’s body was wrenched forward with yet another ferocious and painful sneeze, and he was beginning to irrationally fear he would never stop.  
“EHGTCHh’yu! ... AETSSCHhyew! Aksh! Eh-TSHOO! Heh... sdf… hu’ETSCH! ETISSSH! euh’EPSCH’uh!” Keith was panting now, completely exhausted from his fit. He sunk to the ground, wiping irritated tears from his eyes, and Lance sat beside him, concerned. He noticed that Keith had begun to shiver now, and not the light tremors from earlier, this was more pronounced and worrisome.  
“We should probably s-start headigg back…”  
Keith croaked, starting to get up, only to sit right back down as a wave of dizziness crashed down upon him. Lance glanced at him again, worried gaze boring a hole into the side of Keith’s head. When the shorter man tried to stand again, he ignored the overwhelming desire to sit back down and sleep for the next year; instead he grabbed onto a tree to keep his balance. He slowly regained his composure and began collecting sticks.  
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lance exclaimed.  
“Uhh… What I was supposed to do id the first place?” Keith said sarcastically. Honestly, he wasn’t going to go back on his word due to a little sniffle.  
Lance sighed, and helped Keith collect more wood. Their hands grazed as they went for the same stick, which would have been romantic to Lance had he not felt the boiling heat rolling off his shivering companion.  
“Oh my gosh, Keith!” He exclaimed, his hand shooting to the other’s forehead, which was much too warm. “You have a fever! You really should be resting.”  
Keith only looked at him, sniffling a little before stating plainly “My bangs make my forehead warmer than everyone else’s, and your body temperature would be a little elevated too if someone randomly shoved a blade of grass up your nose to make you sneeze.”  
Lance rolled his eyes at Keith’s denial. If this was how he wanted to play, so be it.  
“Fine, then I guess you don’t mind carrying all the wood, do you? Since you aren’t sick, you won’t be tired at all—especially since you had that little nap earlier.”  
Keith glared at him but did not protest, Lance noticed that he had begun muffling his sneezes into near-silence again, and somehow couldn’t bring himself to ignore them. By the time they made it back to the cave Keith was a sweaty, shivering mess and Lance felt awful about it. Then he reminded himself that, if Keith didn’t want to admit he was sick, he didn’t need to be cared for. He pulled Shiro aside, whispering “I think he’s sick, but he won’t admit it, so if it’s okay with you, could we just not mention it at all? I want him to admit it himself.”  
Shiro looked a little worried, but agreed, with the stern order to “let me know if he gets any worse.” Lance began hovering around Keith who was feverishly, (pun definitely intended) trying to get a fire going. Lance noticed that, even though he was working hard and probably generating quite a bit of internal heat, Keith was still shivering. ‘Maybe he’ll warm up after he gets the fire going…’ Lance thought. Keith was, once again, oblivious to Lance’s presence. His little noise of happiness when he finally saw a little flame caused him to cough—a lot. His coughing put out his tiny flame and he flushed more deeply when he saw that Lance had witnessed the entire spectacle, and was currently trying not to burst into laughter and draw attention from the rest of the team. Keith supposed that he should feel grateful that so far only Lance had been present for his displays of weakness, and yet he was still a little embarrassed that he had shown weakness at all. Growing up in foster homes meant that you couldn’t show weakness or you would be devoured by the stronger kids. Keith would know, he was kind of a sickly kid. He had mostly grown out of his tendency towards illness but the constant stress of being on the team, more specifically dealing with Lance, had weakened his barriers against pathogens. He finally got another small flame ignited, cupping his hands around it and blowing tentatively, so as not to spark another coughing fit. When he got a good, steady burn going, he all but collapsed next to it and felt his eyelids droop towards the land of slumber. Lance, though realizing how much the other man needed his rest, was not ready to give up his pursuit of forcing Keith to admit that he felt ill, and since Keith’s wits were not entirely about him due to his fever, Lance assumed that the moment would arrive soon. However, Lance had underestimated Keith’s stubbornness and experience with pretending to be functional even with a fever that would incapacitate most people. After exchanging a meaningful look with Shiro, Lance shook Keith awake, making up some lame excuse about Shiro’s rules about a buddy system and asking him to come along, Keith’s body went into autopilot and followed the annoying one out of the cave.  
"Hehh'DGZSHSH-uhh!"  
Lance cringed a bit when he heard the bout of congested coughing that ensued after Keith’s earthshaking sneeze. He seemed to be fading after no more than 5 minutes of walking, but Lance pressed onward, determined to achieve his goal of making Keith admit he was ill. About an hour, and many sneezes, later, Keith’s body had apparently had enough. Lance didn’t notice the thump of knees hitting the forest floor, but when he realized he wasn’t hearing Keith’s labored breathing quite so close to him, he looked back to find Keith slumped on the ground, cheeks even more flushed than before and shivering.  
Lance rushed over to him, dropping to his knees and trying to shake the smaller man awake, “Keith, c’mon buddy. It’s time to get up and go back to the cave where you can get warm. Then you can take a nap.”  
All Keith seemed to be able to do was shift a little bit and groan something about not needing to go anywhere, he was comfortable where he was. Lance probably would have been content sitting with him there had it not begun pouring down rain.  
Lance decided his best bet was to leave Keith where he was for a moment and rush around looking for shelter. He saw a cave in the distance and as he rushed back to Keith and helped him to his feet, he hoped that it was the cave the rest of the team was in. But alas, nothing is that simple in their lives anymore. With Keith as ill as he was, there was no way they would be able to reconnect with the team, so Lance would try to nurse Keith back to health on his own and pray that the other paladins found them quickly.  
Lance half-dragged, half-carried the incoherent and shivering Keith to the cave, wincing as he heard Keith go into yet another coughing fit.  
He then launched into a shuddering buildup “Hh…hah-hah-hihh! Hehh…hehh-k’tshIEW!! Hehh’kSHEW! L-ladce?”  
“What is it buddy? Do you need anything? Food? Water? I can try to build a fire if you want…”  
“I-I dod’t feel s-so good. I’b really cold add by th-throat really hurts.”  
Lance felt bad about dragging Keith around. Once again, he’d thought that hearing the smaller man admit illness would feel great, but instead he felt guilty for tricking him into admitting it. Keith’s shivering was also beginning to scare him, and he could barely keep his eyes open. Lance cradled the smaller man in his arms, trying not to wince as Keith’s burning skin touched him. “We have to cool you down, buddy.”  
Keith only moaned in response. Lance stripped Keith of his flight suit, which was damp from their adventure in the rain, and realized that the idiot wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath it—great. Only Keith would do something as dumb as that. Lance quickly stripped down to his underclothes, there was no use in them both being sick, and tore a piece of fabric from Keith’s flight suit. He took the cloth to the edge of the cave and wet it with the freezing rain water, making a makeshift compress for the smaller paladin’s forehead. When he tried to apply it, Keith rolled away from him, shivering even more, and whispering an exhausted plea to stop. Lance softened at this, and hugged the shivering man in his arms again, then he placed the cloth on his forehead. Keith still moaned in protest, but did not try to remove it. Lance stayed put, occasionally wiping Keith’s nose with another piece of cloth if it ran, muttering comforting words to him as he tried to keep him as warm as possible without removing his makeshift cold compress.  
They stayed like that for a few hours, Keith occasionally waking up to sneeze or cough, which he aimed away from Lance. Then Lance would wipe his nose a little, hug him a little tighter if he began to shiver more, and play with his hair to get him back to sleep. When the rain finally let up, Lance was beyond exhausted. He didn’t think he would be able to carry a feverish Keith again, especially without the adrenaline rush that his concern for Keith’s health had brought on when his teammate was passed out in the cold rain with a fever. He put his flight suit back on, it was dry thank goodness, and began to try to wake Keith up again so he could dress him as well. Lance had finally gotten the non-metal portion on the still-feverish paladin and was struggling with the armor, when he heard their names being called. He rushed outside the cave to see Hunk, Pidge, Shiro, Allura, and Coran rushing towards him.  
“Where is Keith? You didn’t kill him, did you?” Shiro asked frantically.  
Lance was offended, “What?? I took very good care of him, for your information.”  
“Where is he then?”  
“Oh yeah. He’s in that cave back there.”  
They all rushed towards the cave and emerged a few minutes later, with Shiro carrying Keith, who was shivering again, bridal style, and the rest of them carrying his armor.  
Hunk pulled Lance into a hug when he noticed how dejected his friend looked at the lack of attention being sent his way.  
“You did a great job taking care of him, Lance. I’m proud of you.” He whispered into his ear.  
“You’re darn right I did a good job! I couldn’t just let the stubborn idiot die out here!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! Sorry it's taken me so long to get this up here! I have recently acquired a job for the summer (so far I'm not a fan of having a job... getting paid minimum wage and having to deal with obnoxious customers... but I have to pay for studying abroad somehow!) and I've been working around 40 hours a week, and then when I get home I either have to take my brother somewhere or I go to the gym with my grandfather (he has dementia and exercise is good for helping slow his memory loss, but he refuses to go unless I go with him). But alas, here it is! I hope y'all enjoy!

The paladins headed back to the castle, most going their separate ways to relax after making sure Keith was settled, but Lance stayed in Keith’s room, wanting to both ensure his teammate would be okay and that he had prime gloating rights as soon as Keith was feeling better. Lance was a little ticked that apparently healing pods couldn’t cure illnesses like they did injuries, but he was glad Keith was on the road to recovery. Keith looked small in his bed, shivering a bit, hair damp and cheeks flushed with fever. Lance brushed a few errant strands of hair away from the red paladin’s eyes, noting how nice Keith’s features were. Keith shifted towards Lance’s heat, sighing contently and smiling a bit. Lance continued running his hands through Keith’s slightly greasy hair, it probably needed a good wash, especially after all the sweating Keith had done due to his fever. Lance subconsciously thought about his own appearance, he’d been sweating too. Keith wasn’t very easy to carry on his own. He wanted to be Keith’s attractive rescuer, his knight in shining blue armor, not some grimy dude who lugged his unconscious body into some dirty cave and hugged him while they were both mostly naked. Lance rushed off to the bathroom, taking quite possibly the shortest shower of his life—only thirty minutes. It was a wonder he got clean at all! Once Lance had dressed himself comfortably in his normal attire, he meandered back to Keith’s room, where he was surprised to see Keith awake and trying to cough his lungs out, apparently. He glided over and thumped him on the back, smiling good-naturedly when Keith looked up at him. His expression fell a little when he saw how ashamed Keith looked.

“ _Sdf_ … Go ahead add say it, Ladce.” Keith mumbled, dropping his eyes to the floor as he spoke.

“Say what, dude?”

“ _Cough_ —I told you so. I kdow you wadt to say it so bad. You dod’t have to wait udtil I’b better. You were right add I should have listeded to you.”

Lance felt a surge of endearment for the smaller paladin, but, since he was given permission… “HA! In your FACE Keith! I was right and you were wrong!” He launched into a victory dance, providing his own music, of course. After a solid minute and a half of victory-dancing, Lance fixed Keith with a serious look, “Seriously though, Keith…Please listen to us if we tell you that you should rest or take a break. Your health is not a matter to take lightly. Why were you so adamant about hiding this? You could’ve seriously hurt yourself.”

“Woah, dod’t get so serious od be all of the sudded.” Keith tried for a smirk, but his face contorted into a grimace as more violent coughs bubbled up from deep within his chest. Lance only smiled a bit and rubbed Keith’s back as he rode out the coughing fit, determined to remember this moment of Keith admitting he was wrong and Lance was right forever. He’d won against Keith! Heck yeah, dude! He sat down on the edge of the bed, still rubbing Keith’s back, surprised and a bit endeared as Keith slumped against his chest.

Plus, now that he knew Keith would be fine, Lance could gloat all he wanted guilt-free. For now, though, Lance decided to relish the rare moment of prolonged semi-affectionate contact that he and Keith were having, with Keith leaning exhaustedly against Lance’s chest as Lance absently twirled a few locks of Keith’s hair. Maybe there was hope for them after all.


End file.
